True or false: Complex sugars are absorbed into the body as simple sugars.

You guys focus way too much on body chemistry and what foods are good and bad and blah blah blah.

I have single digit body fat and it's not because I'm just awesome. It's not because I exercises a lot. It's because I have self-control. Yes, I eat whatever I want, including *gasp* simply sugars *I'MGONNADIE*. The key is that I don't eat as much as I possibly can of them.

I control for caloric intake. I'm not fat because I don't eat more than I burn. If I did, I'd be fat, and how much exercise I do wouldn't matter. If I burn 3000 calories and eat 5000, I'm getting fat.

All this focus on good and bad foods is taking away from the fact that people just need to stop eating so much goddamn food. That's why people are fat. It's not because of sugar making you store fat (which you all should realize CAN be burned off... it's not permanent).

Guess what? I'm hungry right the **** now. I've been hungry for hours. Ice cream sounds amazing. Juice sounds amazing. But what am I not doing? Ingesting that. Why? Because I have self-control. I might eat some later, but if I do, you can be sure as shit that I won't eat more than my daily caloric allowance lets me.

Oh wow someone gets it!

Seriously, cutting out food groups to the point where you're eating nothing but lettuce will amount to shitty living. Just learn how to moderate and do physical activity beyond pressing the X button on your controller to run.

Seriously, cutting out food groups to the point where you're eating nothing but lettuce will amount to shitty living. Just learn how to moderate and do physical activity beyond pressing the X button on your controller to run.

True or false: Complex sugars are absorbed into the body as simple sugars.

You guys focus way too much on body chemistry and what foods are good and bad and blah blah blah.

I have single digit body fat and it's not because I'm just awesome. It's not because I exercises a lot. It's because I have self-control. Yes, I eat whatever I want, including *gasp* simply sugars *I'MGONNADIE*. The key is that I don't eat as much as I possibly can of them.

I control for caloric intake. I'm not fat because I don't eat more than I burn. If I did, I'd be fat, and how much exercise I do wouldn't matter. If I burn 3000 calories and eat 5000, I'm getting fat.

All this focus on good and bad foods is taking away from the fact that people just need to stop eating so much goddamn food. That's why people are fat. It's not because of sugar making you store fat (which you all should realize CAN be burned off... it's not permanent).

Guess what? I'm hungry right the **** now. I've been hungry for hours. Ice cream sounds amazing. Juice sounds amazing. But what am I not doing? Ingesting that. Why? Because I have self-control. I might eat some later, but if I do, you can be sure as shit that I won't eat more than my daily caloric allowance lets me.

Marion Nestle, who I really like as a food/nutrition writer, has a new book that, I believe, has this exact premise.

Marion Nestle - Marion Nestle is professor of Nutrition, Food Studies, and Public Health at New York University, and the author of Food Politics, Safe Food, What to Eat, and Pet Food Politics. More
Marion Nestle is Paulette Goddard Professor in the Department of Nutrition, Food Studies, and Public Health at New York University. She also holds appointments as Professor of Sociology at NYU and Visiting Professor of Nutritional Sciences at Cornell. She is the author of three prize-winning books: Food Politics: How the Food Industry Influences Nutrition and Health (revised edition, 2007), Safe Food: The Politics of Food Safety (2003), and What to Eat (2006). Her most recent book is Feed Your Pet Right: The Authoritative Guide to Feeding Your Dog and Cat. She writes the Food Matters column for The San Francisco Chronicle and blogs almost daily at Food Politics.

Although some diets may be easier for you to stick to or be more satiating, the bottom line is that you need to eat less to reduce body weight.

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One problem in studying the effects of dietary composition is that it is not possible to vary the proportion of one component without changing the others. At the extremes of weight-loss diets, the Atkins and South Beach diets are low carbohydrate but high fat, while the Ornish diet is low fat, high carbohydrate [1]. To compare the effects of such diets outside metabolic wards, researchers must deal with study subjects whose dietary and other behaviors are not easily controlled.

Investigators do everything they can to encourage compliance with study protocols. But they confront a major challenge: Telling free-living people what you want them to do does not necessarily mean that they will follow your instructions or tell you the truth about what they are eating. And you have no easy way of getting around this problem. Because dietary intake methods all depend on accurately disclosing what subjects consume -- something impossible for most people to do -- the lack of an easy way to measure true calorie consumption in weight control studies must be considered "the fundamental flaw of obesity research [2]."

But that's not the only problem. When conducting clinical trials that compare one diet to another, researchers also face challenges in enrolling enough study subjects to satisfy statistical requirements, getting study subjects to stick to the prescribed diets, and retaining participants in the study throughout its length. Furthermore, clinical trials of diet and weight loss are expensive to conduct, and few are able to last long enough to observe whether initial weight losses were regained. These considerations make it especially difficult for investigators to evaluate the results of dietary studies objectively and for others to interpret the significance of the findings. Keep these caveats in mind as we take a look at some of the studies attempting to find out whether varying the proportions of protein, fat, and carbohydrate makes any difference to weight loss in real life.

Cover.jpg LOW-FAT (AND, THEREFORE, HIGH-CARBOHYDRATE) DIETS

Atwater Values indicate that fat has more than twice the energy value of either protein or carbohydrate. It makes sense to think that cutting down on fat would help with weight maintenance or loss. In the United States the various editions of the Dietary Guidelines have long promoted lower-fat diets: "Avoid too much fat" (1980, 1985), "Choose a diet low in fat" (1990, 1995), "Keep total fat intake between 20 to 35 percent of calories" (2005), and "Reduce intake of solid fats" (2010). The more recent editions have focused on limiting saturated fat and cholesterol intake rather than total fat per se in recognition of the potential role of these components in heart disease risk. But the newer guidelines also recognize that from the standpoint of body weight, calories from fat are no different from calories from any other source.

This is a shift from the earlier recommendations that reshaped the marketplace. In the early 1990s, advice to reduce fat intake was all that food companies needed to hear to start making low-fat versions of many common foods -- low-fat cheese, mayonnaise, and peanut butter, for example -- along with oxymoronic products such as fat-free half-and-half and fat-free (but equally caloric) cookies. Such products are not necessarily healthier than the products they replace, and rarely taste as good.

But the relationship of dietary fat to obesity is still of much interest. For one thing, it takes hardly any energy to store excess fatty acids as body fat, whereas it takes a bit more energy to make fatty acids from excess dietary carbohydrate. For another, proponents of low-fat diets cite experimental observations demonstrating a connection between fat intake and overweight:

Some experts, however, view such evidence as not at all specific to fat, as it could just as easily relate to high-calorie diets from any source. Low-fat diets are necessarily high in carbohydrate -- the calories have to come from something. The range of protein in diets is typically 10 percent (low) to 20 percent (high) of calories; it can't be more, because foods are low in protein -- we don't need much. The real issue in real diets is carbohydrate v. fat. Few studies of such difference control for calories. Overall, studies of dietary patterns typically find no association between either the amount or the type of fat in the diet and subsequent weight gain over periods of several years [4].

When investigators compare the effects of weight-loss diets varying in fat content, they find little difference. One study, for example, looked at overweight or obese subjects who had reduced their body weights by about 25 pounds by consuming a diet of 800 calories a day -- a reduction that ought to induce weight loss in anyone. The participants were divided into groups and instructed to consume specified diets containing 20 to 45 percent of calories from fat. Because all participants regained weight at about the same rate during the study period, the investigators concluded that the percentage of dietary fat made no difference [5].

Another study, this one of nearly 50,000 women, compared the effects of low-fat to usual diets over a six-year period. The women assigned to the low-fat diet were treated more attentively, and perhaps for this reason lost more weight during the first year. They also had lower levels of body fat. Those who best adhered to the low-fat diet kept the weight off the longest. But by the end of the study period, the difference between the two groups was too small to be statistically significant. The one long-term benefit seen in the women on the low-fat diet was a small decrease in body fat [6]. Was this benefit due to the low-fat intake or to the reduction in calories? Our guess is fewer calories.

Although diets with varying proportions of fat, carbohydrate, and protein may be easier for you to stick to or be more satiating, the bottom line is that if you want to reduce your body weight, you still need to consume fewer calories.

I don't think anyone here would argue with the fact that eating excess sugar all the time would be bad. It's all the 'sugar makes you fat' arguments when being fat or not boils down to simply a surplus or deficit in daily calories.

You cannot ingest iocane powder. It is odorless, tasteless, and dissolves instantly in liquid.

It will kill you, even a little.

Not remotely. Because iocane comes from Australia, as everyone knows, and Australia is entirely peopled with criminals, and criminals are used to having people not trust them, as you are not trusted by me, so I can clearly not choose the wine in front of you.

I don't think anyone here would argue with the fact that eating excess sugar all the time would be bad. It's all the 'sugar makes you fat' arguments when being fat or not boils down to simply a surplus or deficit in daily calories.

It's not quite that simple.

Chemical bonds require energy to break. Simple carbohydrates are MUCH easier to destroy than fats and proteins. Over-eating simple carbohydrates more readily creates a caloric surplus and ends up leading to the body storing excess calories as fat.

In the end you are correct, but maintaining a proper balance is the key to not having a surplus. Eating more lean protein and proper fats is more filling and therefore makes it easier to prevent over-eating.

im going to opening day and im gonna eat nachos and hot dogs and peanuts and cotton candy and ICE CREAM. tons and tons of ice cream. theyre just gonna have to bring a wheelbarrow down to my seat so i can scoop it all out with a ladel and yell at the bullpen pitchers for being too fat.

1. Sugar can suppress the immune system.
2. Sugar upsets the mineral relationships in the body.
3. Sugar can cause hyperactivity, anxiety, difficulty concentrating, and crankiness in children.
4. Sugar can produce a significant rise in triglycerides.
5. Sugar contributes to the reduction in defense against bacterial infection (infectious diseases).
6. Sugar causes a loss of tissue elasticity and function, the more sugar you eat the more elasticity and function you lose.
7. Sugar reduces high-density lipoproteins.
8. Sugar leads to chromium deficiency.
9. Sugar leads to cancer of the ovaries.
10. Sugar can increase fasting levels of glucose.
11. Sugar causes copper deficiency.
12. Sugar interferes with absorption of calcium and magnesium.
13. Sugar may make eyes more vulnerable to age-related macular degeneration.
14. Sugar raises the level of a neurotransmitters: dopamine, serotonin, and norepinephrine.
15. Sugar can cause hypoglycemia.
16. Sugar can produce an acidic digestive tract.
17. Sugar can cause a rapid rise of adrenaline levels in children.
18. Sugar malabsorption is frequent in patients with functional bowel disease.
19. Sugar can cause premature aging.
20. Sugar can lead to alcoholism.
21. Sugar can cause tooth decay.
22. Sugar contributes to obesity
23. High intake of sugar increases the risk of Crohn’s disease, and ulcerative colitis.
24. Sugar can cause changes frequently found in person with gastric or duodenal ulcers.
25. Sugar can cause arthritis.
26. Sugar can cause asthma.
27. Sugar greatly assists the uncontrolled growth of Candida Albicans (yeast infections).
28. Sugar can cause gallstones.
29. Sugar can cause heart disease.
30. Sugar can cause appendicitis.
31. Sugar can cause hemorrhoids.
32. Sugar can cause varicose veins.
33. Sugar can elevate glucose and insulin responses in oral contraceptive users.
34. Sugar can lead to periodontal disease.
35. Sugar can contribute to osteoporosis.
36. Sugar contributes to saliva acidity.
37. Sugar can cause a decrease in insulin sensitivity.
38. Sugar can lower the amount of Vitamin E (alpha-Tocopherol) in the blood.
39. Sugar can decrease growth hormone.
40. Sugar can increase cholesterol.
41. Sugar can increase the systolic blood pressure.
42. High sugar intake increases advanced glycation end products (AGEs)(Sugar bound non-enzymatically to protein)
43. Sugar can interfere with the absorption of protein.
44. Sugar causes food allergies.
45. Sugar can contribute to diabetes.
46. Sugar can cause toxemia during pregnancy.
47. Sugar can contribute to eczema in children.
48. Sugar can cause cardiovascular disease.
49. Sugar can impair the structure of DNA
50. Sugar can change the structure of protein.
51. Sugar can make our skin age by changing the structure of collagen.
52. Sugar can cause cataracts.
53. Sugar can cause emphysema.
54. Sugar can cause atherosclerosis.
55. Sugar can promote an elevation of low-density lipoproteins (LDL).
56. High sugar intake can impair the physiological homeostasis of many systems in the body.
57. Sugar lowers the enzymes ability to function.
58. Sugar intake is higher in people with Parkinson’s disease.
59. Sugar can increase the size of the liver by making the liver cells divide.
60. Sugar can increase the amount of liver fat.
61. Sugar can increase kidney size and produce pathological changes in the kidney.
62. Sugar can damage the pancreas.
63. Sugar can increase the body’s fluid retention.
64. Sugar is enemy #1 of the bowel movement.
65. Sugar can cause myopia (nearsightedness).
66. Sugar can compromise the lining of the capillaries.
67. Sugar can make the tendons more brittle.
68. Sugar can cause headaches, including migraine.
69. Sugar plays a role in pancreatic cancer in women.
70. Sugar can adversely affect school children’s grades and cause learning disorders.
71. Sugar can cause depression.
72. Sugar increases the risk of gastric cancer.
73. Sugar and cause dyspepsia (indigestion).
74. Sugar can increase your risk of getting gout.
75. Sugar can increase the levels of glucose in an oral glucose tolerance test over the ingestion of complex carbohydrates.
76. Sugar can increase the insulin responses in humans consuming high-sugar diets compared to low-sugar diets.
77. A diet high in refined sugar reduces learning capacity.
78. Sugar can cause less effective functioning of two blood proteins, albumin, and lipoproteins, which may reduce the body’s ability to handle fat and cholesterol.
79. Sugar can contribute to Alzheimer’s disease.
80. Sugar can cause platelet adhesiveness.
81. Sugar can cause hormonal imbalance; some hormones become under active and others become overactive.
82. Sugar can lead to the formation of kidney stones.
83. Diets high in sugar can cause free radicals and oxidative stress.
84. High sugar diet can lead to biliary tract cancer.
85. High sugar consumption of pregnant adolescents is associated with a twofold-increased risk for delivering a small-for-gestational-age (SGA) infant.
86. High sugar consumption can lead to substantial decrease in gestation duration among adolescents.
87. Sugar slows food’s travel time through the gastrointestinal tract.
88. Sugar increases the concentration of bile acids in stools and bacterial enzymes in the colon. This can modify bile to produce cancer-causing compounds and colon cancer.
89. Sugar increases estradiol (the most potent form of naturally occurring estrogen) in men.
90. Sugar combines with and destroys phosphatase, an enzyme, which makes the process of digestion more difficult.
91. Sugar can be a risk factor of gallbladder cancer.
92. Sugar is an addictive substance.
93. Sugar can be intoxicating, similar to alcohol.
94. Sugar can exacerbate PMS.
95. Sugar given to premature babies can affect the amount of carbon dioxide they produce.
96. Decrease in sugar intake can increase emotional stability.
97. The rapid absorption of sugar promotes excessive food intake in obese subjects.
98. Sugar can worsen the symptoms of children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD).
99. Sugar adversely affects urinary electrolyte composition.
100. Sugar can slow down the ability of the adrenal glands to function.
101. I.Vs (intravenous feedings) of sugar water can cut off oxygen to the brain.
102. High sucrose intake could be an important risk factor in lung cancer.
103. Sugar increases the risk of polio.
104. High sugar intake can cause epileptic seizures.
105. Sugar causes high blood pressure in obese people.
106. In Intensive Care Units, limiting sugar saves lives.
107. Sugar may induce cell death.
108. Sugar can increase the amount of food that you eat.
109. In juvenile rehabilitation camps, when children were put on a low sugar diet, there was a 44% drop in antisocial behavior.
110. Sugar can lead to prostrate cancer.
111. Sugar dehydrates newborns.
112. Sugar can cause low birth weight babies.
113. Greater consumption of refined sugar is associated with a worse outcome of schizophrenia
114. Sugar can raise homocysteine levels in the blood stream.
115. Sweet food items increase the risk of breast cancer.
116. Sugar is a risk factor in cancer of the small intestine.
117. Sugar may cause laryngeal cancer.
118. Sugar induces salt and water retention.
119. Sugar may contribute to mild memory loss.
120. The more sodas a 10 year old child consumes, the less milk.
121. Sugar can increase the total amount of food consumed.
122. Exposing a newborn to sugar results in a heightened preference for sucrose relative to water at 6 months and 2 years of age.
123. Sugar causes constipation.
124. Sugar causes varicose veins.
125. Sugar can cause brain decay in prediabetic and diabetic women.
126. Sugar can increase the risk of stomach cancer.
127. Sugar can cause metabolic syndrome.
128. Sugar ingestion by pregnant women increases neural tube defects in embryos.
129. Sugar can be a factor in asthma.
130. The higher the sugar consumption the more chances of getting irritable bowel syndrome.
131. Sugar can affect the brain’s ability to deal with rewards and consequences.
132. Sugar can cause cancer of the rectum.
133. Sugar can cause endometrial cancer.
134. Sugar can cause renal (kidney) cell carcinoma.
135. Sugar can cause liver tumors.
136. Sugar can increase inflammatory markers in the blood stream of overweight people.
137. Sugar can lower Vitamin E levels in the blood stream.
138. Sugar can increase your appetite for all food.
139. Sugar plays a role in the etiology and the continuation of acne.
140. Too much sugar can kill your sex life.
141. Sugar saps school performance in children.
142. Sugar can cause fatigue, moodiness, nervousness and depression.
143. Sugar is common choice of obese individuals.
144. A linear decrease in the intake of many essential nutrients is associated with increasing total sugar intake.
145. High fructose consumption has been linked to liver disease.
146. Sugar adds to the risk of bladder cancer.